Earlier in the week, we took our little one to the beach for the first time. I’d love to say he loved it, but he was asleep most of the time. But, as you can see, I had a good time!
A good, long walk on the beach is always a good moment for some deep chats and enjoying some space to think about things.
With that in mind, an apology…
The idea with Not A Podcast is that these audio thoughts more resemble getting a voicenote from a friend. We all know those people that send you 15-minute-long voicenotes that you have to keep on stopping at various points to respond to the different elements and topics.
I know about those, because, yes…I am one of those people. Sorry to you all.
I know that at 21 minutes and 30 seconds, this is longer than many podcasts themselves, and so there’s a part of my introverted self which finds posting this a challenge - not least that I feel like I have failed on all counts.
However, I am trying to practice some important elements of creative self-care, in that I am trying to trust and believe that what I say is *sometimes* interesting and of value - not because I necessarily believe that (although I’m getting slowly better at that), but because you folks keep listening, subscribing, messaging, emailing and telling me in person that you’re enjoying it. Which is very lovely indeed.
Yes, that sends me down a further rabbit hole of trying to come to terms with a sense of value and worth around my work which I never believed I could even have, but…
Phew. Let’s not go there now.
This is a voicenote catchup. Not A Podcast. Definitely not a therapy session either.
Anyway, as you’ll hear in the voicenote, I’ve been thinking quite hard of late - informed by a very nice run of shows around the country - about what these live music experiences are, what they *might* be for, and some of the long-term pitfalls and issues we might - inadvertently - create for ourselves if we are not careful.
As ever, I am SO KEEN to hear your thoughts. Making these voicenotes and putting them out there is so far away from my comfort zone (will anyone listen; will anyone care; is there any point etc: classic introspective existentialism…the very worst feelings). There is definitely a longer-form Deep Dive piece to be written on this, but as I say, I would love to feature some of your thoughts in this.
So, let me know what you think about going to see live music - why you do it; what you love about it; maybe, too, what you don’t love about it, sometimes; what you get from it; why you choose to invest time, money, effort, energy into doing it…and quite often significant travelling/distance/big efforts to do so.
Thanks as ever for listening. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Have a great rest of the weekend!
p.s. the beach above is a place called Saltburn-by-the-Sea, a beautiful part of the coastline in the North East of England. It’s where 18 months, pretty much to the day, we pushed an upright piano down to the end of the pier and filmed a lovely video for my piece ‘Gleam’. Here’s a reminder for you:
Not A Podcast #13